Newspapers are like buildings, according to the University of Manchester, which for some reason has seen fit to issue a press release about this.
Academics Andrew Crompton and Frank Brown evidently had a bit of time on their hands so decided to test the ‘visual depth’of The Daily Telegraph’s front page.
The ‘experiment’found ‘that the 30 January, 2006, edition of The Telegraph had similar ‘architectural’ properties to beautiful woodland, music, army camouflage and the famous gothic ‘Oddfellows Hall’ building in Manchester”. I kid you not.
Dr Crompton says: ‘According to our analysis, The Telegraph is designed to be read from a range of distances: on a newsstand, across a table or from behind someone’s shoulder.
‘Since they are products evolved in a competitive market this is doubtless deliberate: it’s fair to argue there is a degree of architectural genius in the humble subs’ work.”
Such is the genius of The Daily Telegraph subs that they put this ground-breaking piece of news on the front page on Tuesday, and it was also mentioned in the leader. I can’t help wandering if perhaps this was what University of Manchester PR types had in mind all along.
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